<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Mistress of Lost Mates by EllieL</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29185746">The Mistress of Lost Mates</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieL/pseuds/EllieL'>EllieL</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Department of Mysteries (Harry Potter), F/M, This made my beta cry, Unrequited Love, Unspeakable Hermione Granger, soul mates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:49:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,103</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29185746</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieL/pseuds/EllieL</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>From a prompt by MizzAdamz on the H&amp;C Discord: "Hermione becomes an unspeakable and is assigned to the Love Chamber/Room where she finds orbs like the prophecy ones but are tinted colours. These orbs are the records of the soul mates in the British Isles. Hermione finds her name on a gold orb with black edges."</p><p>With a few modifications, my take on it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Severus Snape</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>180</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Hearts and Cauldrons - Daily Prompts!, Hearts and Cauldrons Discord Members</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Mistress of Lost Mates</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you for the beta, MorbidMuch! Sorry not sorry for making you cry.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Junior Assistant Unspeakable Hermione Granger straightened her robes as the lift emptied, and she descended the final floor to the Department of Mysteries. She’d been working there for six months and found every new revelation fascinating; choosing which area in which to specialize was going to be difficult. And today would bring her final option, the room she had been told had driven more Unspeakables to madness than even the Death Chamber.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Today she would begin working in the Love Chamber.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When she knocked on the door, it unsealed with an eerie hiss. Waiting for her was the wizened form of Peregrine Myles, Mistress of the Love Chamber, peering at her through bottle-thick lenses and looking like a sheep in fluffy white robes. The old witch said nothing merely stepped back and allowed Hermione to enter before resealing the door.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Only then did she turn to the younger woman, speaking with a surprisingly firm and clear alto. “Welcome to the most powerful and dangerous section in the Ministry. Guard your sentiments well here, Miss Granger.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hermione swallowed her sudden ominous feeling and nodded. “I will, Mistress Myles.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They stopped in front of another door, thick and painted black. “This is where you will start, with some simple reorganization of the Soul Spheres.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Soul Spheres?” she asked, before the elder witch touched her wand to the door and it swung open, revealing row upon row of shelves. At first glance they appeared similar to those that had held prophecies. But these were a rainbow of colors; red and blue and green and even a few bright gold, some dark and dim.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“These are all the soul mates who have been or will be, in Britain. They flare when both the mates are born, glow brightly when they’ve found one another. They dim when one dies, and go dark when both soul mates have passed.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why are they different colors?” She gazed over the shelves, trying to wrap her mind around the idea of </span>
  <em>
    <span>soul mates,</span>
  </em>
  <span> which she’d always thought was nothing more than romantic drivel to sell cheap novels.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ah! Different colors for the different kinds of soul mates one might encounter in life, if we are lucky. Red for romantic, blue for healing, green for platonic.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And the gold spheres? What are those few gold spheres?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Those are the rarest and most precious of all. True soul mates, in every sense.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I see.” She didn’t, not really, but she trusted that like everything else in the Department of Mysteries, time and experience would bring understanding.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’d like you to start by weeding out the dimmed and darkened spheres. Those will be put on their own section. Then we’ll consider reorganizing the rest by type, rather than simply by chronology. That can be a tricky thing, as you’ve already experienced.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her stint in the Time Room had indeed taught her that chronology was a tricky, nebulous thing, even more so than Muggle physicists would have one believe. She wondered if the Soul Spheres were bound to the constraints of time, and wondered how much interdepartmental discussion and cooperation occurred within the Department of Mysteries. But asking questions like that was frowned upon in the Ministry as a whole, and most frustratingly amongst the Unspeakables.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sorting all the spheres seemed a massive undertaking, and before she could ask whether it could be accomplished with magic, Mistress Myles was gone, and she was left alone with the Soul Spheres. She stared up at the rows of orbs for a few moments, then reached out to the sphere closest to her, a glowing green one bearing the names Edward Dister and Mark Page. She shrugged and replaced it carefully.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Then she set to work. Over the course of the first week, she spent long days walking the shelves, gathering the dimmed spheres. Nearly all of the names, like those on the first sphere she’d touched, were unfamiliar.  Most, too, were green platonic spheres, balanced by some blue and a few scattered red. In a week of moving through the room, she’d not seen a dozen golden spheres.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All the dimmed and darkened spheres were all being moved to their own new room, to make room for the new spheres appearing daily, as the post-war population boomed. She hadn’t seen a new gold sphere at all, but had taken a moment to smile when she saw the bright green sphere bearing the names of Scorpius Malfoy and James Potter. It would be hard to keep that one to herself as she watched the boys grow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The third day of sorting, she’d picked up a darkened red sphere, bearing the names of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black. She’d shed a tear over that one, and broke down at home that evening over all the senseless loss represented in so many of the dimmed spheres. The war had cost so many their happiness, their very soul mates.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>By Friday, she thought she’d made excellent progress, having filled nearly a dozen shelves in the new Room of Lost Mates. She’d stared at the sign by the door for a long time the first day, and tried to avoid looking at it every time she walked a new batch of spheres in. Even Madam Myles had nodded approvingly when she’d checked in at lunchtime, telling her kindly that she could make an early weekend of it once she finished with sorting out Row G.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There weren’t many dim or dark spheres in Row G, so she suspected she’d be done several hours early. After the sphere with Remus and Sirius on it, she’d tried not to look too closely at the names on them, which made the whole process feel slightly impersonal, but easier to bear. If she let herself start thinking about the individual lives represented, the love and loss, it would be overwhelming and she would not make it through her time here; it was very clear to her that she was not dispassionate enough to work in the Love Chamber, odd as that might seem.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She was scanning along the bottom of the last shelf when she saw the dimmed gold sphere and reached for it. There had been no such golden spheres that had called for removal thus far, so she was instantly curious, despite her personal vow to remain objective and not look too closely at the named individuals. This time, she couldn’t help it, couldn’t help but feel an odd pull towards the sphere, powerful enough that it made her hesitate for just a moment before reaching out to grab it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A jolt ran through her hand when she touched it; not painful, like some of the Weasley’s Wheezes tricks, but something like a spark of connection, the way she’d felt when she’d first touched her wand. None of the other spheres had done anything remotely similar, though she’d not had the occasion to pick up any of the gold spheres of true soul mate so far. She lifted it carefully after that, cradling it in two hands as she brought it up to eye level to examine rather than immediately putting it in the basket with the other dimmed and darkened spheres.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Severus Snape’s name stood out in clear etching on the glass, and her heart dropped into her stomach. The poor man had suffered so much, likely without ever having the opportunity to try to find happiness, let alone his soul mate. A golden, perfect soul mate. She teared up at the very idea, and a shiver went through her as she carefully rotated the sphere to see the other name. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As she read her own name on the other side of the sphere, the world seemed to freeze around her. She dropped to her knees there in the Love Chamber, cradling the orb to her chest and struggling to breathe. Her heart ached in a way she hadn’t realized was possible, certainly not in a way she’d ever expected to feel for Severus Snape, as if a part of her had just been ripped away permanently.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She wasn’t sure how long she knelt on the hard tile floor, rolling the sphere back and forth between her name and Severus Snape’s, but it was a long time, until she could breathe again normally and her heart had returned to a somewhat regular, if lurching, rhythm. The room was silent, and she remained undisturbed as she gathered herself up off the ground, still staring down at the Soul Sphere. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She glanced down at the basket of other dimmed and darkened spheres, then decided to tuck it into the pocket of her robes. The rest of the basket went to the Room of Lost Mates and were shelved, the dimmed spheres to the left side of the entrance, the dark ones to the right. After she finished, she lingered in the doorway a moment, hand in her pocket, fingers brushing the smooth surface of her own sphere. It belonged here, too, but she could not bear to be parted from it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was against every Ministry regulation to walk out with it, but she couldn’t help herself. No alarms sounded as she walked out of the Love Chamber, no klaxons blared as she left the Department of Mysteries, no Aurors came in hot pursuit as she left the Ministry. Instead, she walked a long way along the Thames before realizing that she was in no state to apparate home, and kept walking, miles back to her flat.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There, she sat on the couch and stared at the Soul Sphere, rolling it over in her hands, watching the sparkling plasma inside roil at the movement. She had no idea what to do with the knowledge that she had a true soul mate, who was lost to her forever. In many ways, it explained much about why she’d felt alone and uninterested in romantic relationships for the past two years, leaving her alone with Crookshanks. But surely there were people out there who went on, and found some kind of happiness and purpose in their lives, without the love of their life. She thought of how her grandmere had survived the war, after losing the grandpere she’d never met in a concentration camp, loving her children and grandchildren and building a life for them all--it must be possible.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She skipped dinner and stayed up very late just contemplating the sphere and what to do with the knowledge of what could have been with Severus. The entire weekend was spent in her flat, trying to avoid getting lost in her own head and dreaming of what might have been, had he lived, had she been able to save him. The guilt over not being able to save him, of how long it took to get back to retrieve him, had haunted her since the final battle, and the sentiment finally made complete sense. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Monday morning, she felt exhausted and restless as she made her way back to the Department of Mysteries with the Soul Sphere tucked safely in her pocket; she was reluctant to let it out of her possession. Unlike the mornings most of the previous week, she was once again met at the door by Peregrine Myles, green eyes looking enormous as she peered through her thick glasses.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, good morning, Mistress Myles,” she said, feeling slightly uncomfortable as the petite witch looked her over. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the older witch saw something, </span>
  <em>
    <span>knew</span>
  </em>
  <span> something.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Miss Granger. You’ve been very productive in setting up the new Room of Lost Mates. After assessing your qualities and abilities, the Department of Mysteries has promoted you to Assistant Unspeakable. You have become the Mistress of Lost Mates.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She opened her mouth to protest, to say that was not a role she was comfortable fulfilling, or that she hadn’t even finished her departmental rotations and evaluations, or that she’d really been interested in the Brain Room. But no words emerged, and a feeling of rightness settled over her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mistress Myles nodded once, sharply. “Here, the departments chose their own, Mistress Granger.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That seemed very true, as Hermione made her way to the Room of Lost Mates, finding a desk waiting for her that had not been there on Friday. It was just the right height for her, positioned at an angle to the door with a view to the rows of shelves and spheres, with a smooth, sleek surface except for one dimple at the upper left corner. There, for the rest of her long, storied career in the Department of Mysteries, sat a dim gold sphere.</span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>